Easyjet Holidays at 5: The Bold Expansion Set to Challenge Jet2

Posted on August 21, 2025 by admin

Summer 25 marks the 5th year of Easyjet Holidays operating as a separate holidays division with a dedicated internal management team running the business, and the company is expanding rapidly, readying itself to challenge Jet2 Holidays for the top spot as the UK’s largest Tour Operator. However, its history begins well before this milestone date.

Initially, Easyjet Holidays was created as a quick response to the success of Jet2 Holidays, which I helped Philip Meeson, and his team launch in 2007 after presenting the opportunity of launching a Dynamic Packaging tour operation on the back of their low-cost airline to fill the gap in the market left by the effective closure of MyTravel in the North following its merger with Peterborough-based Thomas Cook in the same year.

Having served as MyTravel’s Deputy Chief Executive, I gained direct insight into the threat posed by low-cost carriers and the internet to the dominance of large, vertically integrated groups in the package holiday sector. When MyTravel encountered difficulties in 2003, I left and founded the “On Holiday Group” together with MyTravel’s Purchasing Director Bill Allen and Cosmos Sales Director Brian Young, to exploit the rapidly developing dynamic packaging market, and quickly tied up with Jet2.

However, our time as technology and bed bank partners was always limited once Meeson recognised the strategic advantages of having an in-house tour operation, and after two years, he brought in Steve Heapy and many other former Mytravel staff to run his own operation.

Ironically, this in turn led to an opportunity to provide a tour operating platform to Easyjet Holidays in partnership with Hotel Beds, who operated Easyjet Holidays between 2014 and 2017. In truth, the experience was a frustrating one, as Easyjet always saw the tour operation as a “non-core” business and just a way of boosting ancillary income. They even refused repeated pitches to allow us to sell via the trade, as they saw it as a distraction they did not need.

This all changed when Johan Lundrum moved from managing the vertically integrated tour operator TUI to becoming Easyjet Airways’ CEO. He clearly recognised the advantages of a full-scale Easyjet Holidays and recruited Garry Wilson, along with several other former TUI staff, to oversee the new operation that launched in April 2019 for Summer 2020.

However, the timing could not have been worse, with Covid-19 taking hold in March 2020, effectively destroying the Summer 2020 and 2021 seasons before a slow relaunch in 2022. Nevertheless, Easyjet Holidays’ flexible model and lack of hotel guarantees allowed it to minimise losses compared to the UK’s market leader TUI, which accumulated substantial losses and debts during this period.

COVID-19 also taught holiday makers that DIY holidays came at a substantial risk, and a massive 31% expressed a wish to switch to ATOL bonded holidays, which the new operation was perfectly positioned to provide to its Easyjet Flights audience.

The 2022 year proved the concept for the new operations with its 1.1m carryings delivering a healthy £39m profit for the group. Passengers and profits have since been on a massively positive upward spiral, culminating in 2024’s 2.4 million passengers and £190 million group contribution.

I believe that Easyjet Holidays is just beginning its UK expansion and will continue to grow at a healthy rate of 25% per year, as it currently accounts for only 5.4% of its parent airline’s seats. In contrast, Jet2 Holidays is already reaching capacity limits, using on average 66% of its parent airline’s seats, with some core beach routes exceeding 80%. Easyjet Holidays can expand quickly by selling more to its airline customer base, whilst Jet2 Holidays depends on its parent airline opening new bases and routes, which requires creating new demand. Meanwhile, Easyjet is simply shifting customers from flights alone to package holidays.

Easyjet also has a £50 profit advantage per passenger over its OTA competitors, as it can capture a large share of free brand traffic from its parent flight-only business. This can be used to reduce prices or to outbid these companies for advertising clicks, both of which suggest that Easyjet Holidays will grow more quickly.

So no matter how you see it, the future is “Orange,” and I expect that over the next 5 years Easyjet will become a market leader with 8 million passengers. So the interesting question is,” Who will bear the cost of this growth?

I expect 65% of the extra 5.6m to come from simply converting Easyjet flight customers from DIY holidays to packages, but this leaves 35% or 2m to come from increasing market share at the expense of competitors.

Ironically, Jet2 Holidays’ current significant strength in trade distribution could become a weakness, as it has been secured at a low commission rate of 6% if agents want price parity. You might easily see some of this being lost if Easyjet offered volume-related commission overrides above this.

The rejuvenated Tui holidays, now that it has paid off most of its debt mountain and also agreed on a strategic distribution deal with Ryanair, look quite secure, as it has no competitors for its Dreamliner long-haul beach product.

So, this leaves the likely losers to be the OTAs Love Holidays and On the Beach, particularly as we see a migration from their Google PPC heartland to AI Search, where it is likely asset holders will be given preference.

This makes Love’s February 2026 IPO crucial for the business as it seeks to defend itself from the ever-expanding “Orange” machine.

The next 5 years are likely to be highly interesting.

Love’s £1 Billion IPO: Growth Story or Overvalued Gamble?

Posted on August 17, 2025 by admin

Since the launch of “We Love Holidays” in 2012 by Alex Francis and Jonny Marsh, the company has adeptly navigated the industry, attracting a panel of industry luminaries as early-stage investors to enhance their credibility with Meridian Corporate Finance, which provided the initial £2m expansion capital.

They invested this money in developing the best “Caching” solution in the travel sector, which enabled them to take live API feeds from bed banks and build databases of prices that could be easily combined with similar flight “caches” to generate billions of holiday options.

This may seem simple, but developing algorithms to determine how often prices should be updated based on factors like time before departure, party type, or duration is complex. These algorithms are vital for minimising any price jumps customers notice when shifting from cached pricing, which might be outdated, to live prices required for booking.

Caching prices enabled Love to both speed up its results presentation and introduce innovations such as the “Month” view on hotel landing pages, where customers could see all the prices by date of arrival at the hotel, including flight costs. These allow them to choose the cheapest travel options if their dates are flexible.

However, it was not until Living Bridge bought the business for £190m in 2018 that the company had the capital needed to expand from 140 to 750 staff and implement a highly aggressive Google PPC bidding strategy that saw them reach the top spot on most travel search terms.

Like most travel businesses, Love was devastated by Covid-19 and suffered significant losses. However, its recovery from Covid has been remarkably impressive, with passenger numbers reaching 5 million and profits of £67.6m in 2024, twice that of their closest competitor, On the Beach, whom they have blown out of the water in terms of growth rate.

Few Venture Capital firms are willing to hold their investments longer than five years, and even with the disruption caused by COVID-19, Living Bridges’ exit is now long overdue. Having failed to find a trade buyer or VC investor, Love’s owners appointed Rothschild in July 2025 to facilitate an IPO that values the business at an eye-watering £1 billion in the first quarter of 2026.

In many ways, Love’s IPO timing is ideal.

Previously, there had been serious doubts about their long-term access to low-cost flight seats as Jet2 and Easyjet continued to expand their own tour operations and impose API fees of at least £24 per booking, damaging either the ability to offer competitive pricing or profits of OTAs. At the same time, Ryanair was actively hostile, trying to block access to their seats and calling OTAs like Love “Pirates” that were “Conning” customers and marking up Ryanair flights above their actual cost.

However, in January 2024, Rynair did a complete “U-turn”, with Love becoming the first Ryanair-approved package holiday provider, with access to all Ryanair flights with a Zero API fee, and it is now believed that Ryanair flights power over 50% of the holidays sold by Love.

This guaranteed seat access, combined with a large surplus of UK departing flight seats in Summer 2025, will have boosted turnover and profit substantially, and I expect record-breaking financial results for the year ended 2025.

But has Love reached the crest of their growth wave?

Investors closely analysing Love’s results will be worried by the 30% decline in the cost-efficiency of Google advertising, a key issue in most OTA board rooms. This decline is primarily attributed to the shift towards AI search engines, particularly Google’s introduction of Gemini AI answers at the top of search results.

Put simply, customers are finding their desired answers more quickly and with fewer clicks, significantly reducing the traffic available to OTAs, while the cost of these clicks has risen as OTAs compete for them.

Unlike On the Beach, Love has historically focused on driving traffic through Google or profit share deals with the social media giant “Travel Pirates,” rather than investing in above-the-line brand awareness campaigns.

Just as the advent of the internet destroyed the vertically integrated tour operators’ grip over high street distribution, the advent of AI Search could destroy Love’s stronghold over top “pay per click” (PPC) positions as the market evolves away from a PPC model, reducing its access to customers.

Many commentators argue that new AI agentic tools will enable DIY holidaymakers to bypass the OTA intermediaries and connect directly with asset owners, such as airline and hotel websites, to fulfil their holiday needs without the OTA markup, relying on credit card protection instead of ATOL cover in case anything goes wrong.

However, I believe Love could present a convincing counterargument that their “Caching” systems make them the ideal partners for AI Search engines seeking to help customers find the best prices for a holiday in Majorca, because they can offer their month view tools that show exactly this.

It is simply too early to predict exactly how AI search will affect Love and other UK OTAs, but I must admit that my doubts mean I will not be investing at a £1 billion valuation, as I believe Love may already have reached the peak of their valuation.

However, this is only my guess. What’s your view?

No Flight of Fantasy, Just Facts: Why Ryanair Should Enter Holidays Now

Posted on August 7, 2025 by admin

After my last blog on this topic, I was told by some senior industry players that I was “Delusional” and writing like a Sun Newspaper “clickbait” journalist.

In this blog, I’ll attempt to adopt the style of a Financial Times reporter, concentrating solely on the financial statistics that support my argument for Ryanair to acquire both On the Beach (OTB) and Love Holidays.

However, to do so, I will need to use EasyJet Holidays as my baseline for comparison, as it shows why the city is so eager for its rapid expansion, given that EasyJet earns a profit of £13.42 per return flight while a holiday passenger generates a significant £73.08 per passenger. Put simply, a holiday customer is five times more valuable than a seat-only customer (See below).

Article content — Key per passenger profit figures

When considering Easyjet’s Holidays’ profitability or its share of the parent company’s total flight capacity, it is essential to remember that the airline counts customers based on sectors flown. For example, a return trip to Majorca counts as two passengers, whereas the holiday division counts it as one customer. Therefore, in 2024, the holiday division with 2.6 million passengers used 5.2 million flights, accounting for 5.1% of the airline’s total 100.4 million seats.

However, it contributed £190m or 31% of the group’s £610m profit. It does not take a city genius to realise that EasyJet has a fast route to increase group profits by rapidly scaling its holiday division at 25% per year. (Public statement)

As the table below shows, EasyJet has a much higher profit per passenger than its OTA rivals, On the Beach and Love Holidays, which can only deliver £13.80 and £13.25 per passenger profits.

Although these OTAs face high API fees from Easyjet, unlike EasyJet Holidays, this has little effect on overall profitability since their primary seat supply comes from API fee-free sources such as Ryanair and their Turkish airline partners.

Similarly, it is unlikely that EasyJet Holidays will have an advantage in hotel purchasing. Like their OTA rivals, they have avoided extensive hotel guarantees and have a shorter trading history than OTB, whose buying team has over 20 years of experience in the dynamic packaging sector and which shifted en masse to On the Beach after the collapse of bed bank player On Holiday Group.

The relative size of the businesses of On the Beach and Easyjet Holidays is similar, but the rapidly expanding Easyjet and the larger-scale Love Holidays both have lower administrative overheads than the more mature On the Beach.

The key differentiator is that Easyjet Holidays has little marketing costs, as most of its traffic comes from its parent company’s flight-only website. Easyjet, as a travel “Super Brand,” has substantial direct brand traffic and, unlike its OTA competitors, is not reliant on costly Google travel search traffic at the destination, resort, or hotel level.

This gives it a dramatically lower cost of customer acquisition compared to its OTA rivals, and it is the ever-increasing cost of Google traffic that is strangling the profitability of OTAs and causing their capitalisation to be heavily discounted despite their current healthy profits.

Ryanair also owns calculators and, as a publicly quoted business, will have financial analysts asking, “Why are you not in the profitable Holiday sector?”

In my opinion, the decision to move into the sectors is a” no-brainer” because, like Easyjet, Ryanair could generate free traffic for its tour operating division. For instance, if it acquired On the Beach, it would immediately increase profits by eliminating its £20 advertising costs and expanding its scale to reduce overheads, bringing it in line with its competitor, Love. This could add a further £30, resulting in a potential profit boost of £50 to £63.25.

Love Holidays accounts, as a private business, are less straightforward to analyse, but why shouldn’t it also see a £50 increase in profits to £63.80, considering these are still a full £10 behind EasyJet Holidays? Applying this £50 boost to the combined 7 million passengers carried by the two OTAS would generate an extra £350 million in their bottom lines, representing a substantial shift in their existing combined profitability from £94 million to £444 million.

Therefore, even if Ryanair paid £1 billion, which is a P/E of 11, for the businesses at their current profitability, the increase in profits it could generate would result in a payback period of 2.25 years, representing an excellent return on investment for any business.

The acquisition would also provide both parties with a strong platform to expand into other key source markets for Ryanair, such as the large German holiday market, which sees 68m passengers travelling each year.

Now, obviously, some key objections have been raised against this argument, so let’s examine these one at a time

Ryanair never buy and prefers organic growth.

As the dominant low-cost carrier with a very clear model, why would Ryanair acquire another airline apart from access to slots or source market dominance? Hence, I agree they have so far preferred organic growth in their core flight market.

However, they lack expertise in the holiday sector, as well as the necessary technology and have a customer service ethos that few passengers would trust with their holidays. Partnering with trusted travel brands that have customer service commitments dictated by ATOL bonding regulations, which would eliminate any Ryanair customer service issues, makes a lot of sense.

Lastly, as all financial analysts will point out, accounting rules allow the entire £1 billion acquisition cost to be recognised on the balance sheet. Even with an aggressive 10-year goodwill depreciation costing £100m per year, the net boost to Ryanair group’s profits would be £344m annually. Not to be sniffed at!

Competitors would refuse to supply seats to the OTAs.

Easyjet and Jet2 are already the OTAs’ competitors and supply less than 25% of seats combined due to high API fees and restricted seat access, with Ryanair, long-haul scheduled airlines and core Turkish airline partnerships providing the balance.

In reality, just as when I headed Airtours, I traded distribution through my retail outlets with competitors; the same will likely happen again, and why would Easyjet truly benefit from cutting these high-margin API flight sales via these OTAS?

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

Again, this is a possibility but unlikely given the size of Tui Holidays and the rapidly expanding Easyjet Holidays, which would mean that the new travel division would have less than 50% market share.

Conclusion.

With the approaching disruption that the move to AI search will have on the dominance that Love and OTB have over Google PPC click traffic, the ability to ability for management teams to “Dock” their business in a safe “Harbour” where they are guaranteed a significant element of free spin off traffic from the Ryanair website should be attractive, however, even I would hesitate to join Ryanair, unless I was guaranteed a degree of independence that they are unlikely to get.

From an investor’s point of view, it’s also a “no-brainer” as Love is owned by venture capital funds who are still involved long after their standard investment term and OTB as a quoted company is vulnerable to anybody offering a 20% premium over the low current share price.

No third party can predict Ryanair’s internal strategy, and I am sure there are many reasons why they would not be interested. However, the basic logic of the maths does not lie, and this is why I have explained it in such detail in this blog. Another unknown is how Easyjet and Jet2 would react to a Ryanair move, as the last time the UK market consolidated with the merger of Thomson and First Choice, further consolidation followed rapidly

I personally believe market consolidation is inevitable, with Ryanair being the obvious buyer, but I’d love to hear your opinions. Am I still promoting a flight of ‘Fantasy’ or a logical argument? If you spot any errors in my amateur financial analysis, please let me know, but remember this is a big picture issue!

Why Bigger Isn’t Better: The Joy of Cruising on a Turkish Gullet

Posted on August 2, 2025 by admin

This week’s holiday on an 8-cabin Gullet in Turkey reminded me why small boat cruising is my favourite out of the various catamarans, river cruises, or large ocean cruising we have done as a family over the last 20 years.

Although not as sleek looking as the mega cabin cruises that surround us in the harbour, the Gullet offers faultless practicality with reasonably sized air-conditioned en-suite cabins, along with plenty of sunbathing space for the 13 holidaymakers on board.

I appreciate the plentiful outdoor space on the Gullet because it allows you to find a quiet spot to read or join other members of the two-family group for a few wines or beers as the sun sets and we enter port. This, combined with flexibility around departure and arrival times, as well as the option for full-scale changes to the pre-planned tour itinerary to provide more partying time for the youngsters in Fethiye, makes the product a winner for me.

However, it’s always worth remembering that 80% of the enjoyment of a holiday stems from the people you’re with and the friendliness of the staff hosting you. We could not have had a more welcoming or helpful crew, where nothing was too much trouble, than our Turkish crew this week on the S.Nur Taylan.

The crews of almost all the cruise ships I have travelled on have been excellent, but a 2:1 crew ratio on a small boat means you get to know everybody by name and much more closely.

I developed a love for the tranquillity of sailing boats over power boats many years ago. However, I still frustrate my sailing mates with my refusal to show any interest in sailing beyond being a “ballast weight” who reads his book as we sail along and has zero interest in gaining the navigational skills or sailing qualifications that would allow me to buy my own boat. Not that I ever would as why buy what you can rent? In my mind, holiday assets are just weights that stop you from travelling to many other destinations.

Although I enjoyed our trips on twin-hulled catamarans around Greece, Turkey, and Croatia, the space is much more confined, and with just one Captain as crew, you’re far more susceptible to a disaster. Ours occurred in Ibiza when Waska, the captain, was such a contentious character that we ended up leaving a day early because he had upset the kids so much that they no longer wanted to stay on board with him.

Getting my group of five kids aged 18 to 29 to go on holiday with me now requires inviting partners and an expensive trip they can’t afford themselves. Like most kids, they expect the bank of mum and dad to cover the entire cost throughout the holiday as compensation for their company, but to be fair, it’s worth every penny as quality time with your kids is hard to come by when three of them live 5 hours away.

The youngsters particularly enjoyed last year’s cruise from Rome around the Greek Islands on Royal Caribbean’s latest mega-ships, Odyssey of the Seas, which can hold 4,200 adults. Undeterred by the large crowds on board, the kids loved the wide range of food and entertainment available from evening theatre shows, gourmet restaurants, bars, and multiple visits to the casino and nightclubs.

I, however, struggled and felt more like a “battery-fed chicken”, squeezed onto a sun lounger next to strangers and forced to get up at 6 am to join a queue for disembarkation tickets to ensure you could visit some of the popular destinations requiring tendering. Although I understand the benefits of the Mega Cruise lines, I have not found one yet that suits me, and I prefer the more “Butlins” like Airtours Cruise ships of old, as they were small enough for me to cope with. And did I even mention that the Royal Caribbean WIFI “Pirate Robbery” at £890 for the combined families’ various laptops, iPads and phones? It’s amazing the grips that stick in your mind post what was a fabulous multi-generational holiday to be fair.

We have only ever experienced one River Cruise so far, even though TV adverts for Viking Cruises have constantly tempted me. This was secured through a bid from my lovely wife Ruth at last year’s ITT conference with the fabulous Arose River Cruising brand.

However, once again, we failed to think it through properly, and a winter river cruise is an entirely different beast from their summer counterparts, as the cold weather effectively traps you below decks in spaces designed for only half their winter capacity. Add to this the fact that we were the only native English speakers on board, and it’s not surprising that things did not quite meet my high expectations.

The experience has not put me off, however, as these multi-city floating “coach tours” offer the freedom to get off each day and enjoy breathtaking views as you cruise at a slow pace down Europe’s beautiful waterways.

But small boat cruising remains my favourite, and we have just booked our third Croatian Cruise next year with 34 other travel sector buddies who, like me, love this particular brand of Cruising.

Each Cruise version has its pros and cons, but they all have one thing in common. They are in a healthy and expanding sector of the UK Travel Industry. Viva le Cruise!

Turkey’s Summer Surge: How OTAs Are Rewriting the Travel Game

Posted on July 27, 2025 by admin

Sitting on a beautiful “gullet” parked in the harbour of an ultra-busy Marmaris resort in Turkey, I am reminded why Turkey is the clear Summer 2025 winner.

My flight from Manchester to Turkey with Turkish-based Sun Express was fully booked, and if I had booked it today, it would have cost a reasonable £297. Demand remains high for this excellent value destination, where new hotels continue to be built each season as the main resorts extend further along the scenic coastline, and it has easily absorbed the additional 11% of holidaymakers arriving this year.

Talking to holiday makers in various bars last night and asking who they had travelled with was like playing a proverbial game of tennis as I was repeatedly told “On the Beach: Love”, “On the Beach: Love”, and so it is clear that these UK OTA’s are clearing up, by turning the plentiful flight stock from Sun Express, Pegasus and Corendon Airlines into low cost ATOL bonded packages.

Sun Express, because its aircraft are based downstream in Dalaman and Antalya, can serve 11 of the UK’s 13 main leisure airports with direct flights, opening demand from the entire UK, rather than Jet2, which must open a new UK base every time it wants to expand. However, before the advent of OTAs with UK-wide reach, foreign airlines struggled to establish a presence in the UK because their brands weren’t known. However, customers who trust “On the Beach” (OTB) are rarely bothered by which flight they are assigned to, as they know that, as the ATOL holder, OTB will resolve any issues that occur.

This interesting dynamic means that Turkey has control over its tourism industry in a way few destinations have and can potentially control capacity to avoid over-tourism or excess seat capacity that drags down prices.

The UK’s latest market this year has been particularly “fragile”, with flight stock clearing exceeding demand for destinations like Majorca. For peak season August dates, you can snap up a £34 return fare with Ryanair if you’re willing to travel from Newcastle. However, with many other fares below £50 from across the country, why bother?

The only problem is that Spanish hoteliers have also learned their lesson and now operate based on 80% load factors, keeping prices high to force the pain of discounting holiday prices on low-cost airline seats.

Fascinatingly, industry colleagues tell me that demand fluctuates by the day and that we are back to the days when the best indication of demand is given by a glance out of the window at the weather.

The hot early summer, combined with children who now entertain themselves with on-demand TV, interactive video games with friends or social media, has left parents with the ability to make a late choice on a summer holiday based on the weather and their desire to travel, rather than the historic urgent need to break up a long summer school break with a holiday aboard.

This is great for the holiday maker, but less than ideal for a low-cost carrier yield model that assumes it will be able to increase prices close to departure as the aircraft sells out. This may be the first summer that we have seen the low-cost carriers overreach themselves, and I wait with fascination to see their next announcements to the city.

Inevitably, this will lead to a doubling down of their efforts to grow their early booking in-house tour operators, so watch out for an even bigger Easyjet Holiday next year, given that they still represent less than 5% of their parent airline’s carryings and don’t forget my predictions about Rynair stepping into the space via acquisition.

We have had a hot summer 2025, but the heat may increase further in 2026.

What does Ryanair want for its 40th birthday? Ten new jets or becoming a holiday giant? Ryanair’s billion-dollar dilemma.

Posted on July 10, 2025 by admin

Like them or loathe them as a customer, as a businessman, it’s very hard not to admire the success and growth that Ryanair has achieved since its inaugural flight on 8 July 1985, with a 15-seat Embraer Bandeirante turboprop flying from Waterford (Ireland) to London Gatwick.

Interestingly, their first £99 flight price is probably higher than most of their fares this August, as excess flight stock for the first time is coming home to roost for low-cost carriers that appeared to know no restrictions on growth.

Ryanair has always known who to attack with their low fares model, and after devastating Irish flag carriers like Aer Lingus, they have moved around Europe picking off one fat scheduled airline after another, whilst keeping a healthy competition with the likes of EasyJet and Jet2.com.

Few global airlines have been shaped by just one person; however, the arrival of a young Michael O’Leary in 1988, when he was promoted from Tony Ryan’s personal aide to Chief Financial Officer of the rapidly expanding Ryanair, is a notable example. For me, this was a key milestone in their history because of the low-cost model he introduced.

In 1990, confronted with financial peril, O’Leary is credited with restructuring the airlines to a “no-frills” budget carrier openly modelled after the successful USA carrier Southwest Airlines. Ryanair quickly eliminated business class and free in-flight meals, standardised its fleet to a single aircraft type, and targeted a 25-minute turnaround for flights, a model it’s never strayed from since.

From its modest beginnings at Stansted in 1991, Ryanair has steadily negotiated with underutilised airports and weak tourist boards to secure operating subsidies. These, along with its bulk purchasing of aircraft, have given it an estimated 30% lower operating cost per seat compared to competitors like EasyJet and Jet2.

This has undoubtedly been a key driver of Ryanair’s success, as although many customers dislike Ryanair’s harsh customer service ethos, they continue to book by the millions, as Ryanair delivers the best on-time arrival statistics of any low-cost airline in the sector and unbeatable prices.

Let’s face it, when it’s a 2-4 hour short-haul flight, convenient local airports and ultra-low prices will trump national carriers and often competing low-cost operations.

The airline would not have achieved this dominance if it had not been for some bold decision-making along the way, such as outrightly turning down a takeover bid by Aer Lingus in its early days in 1993 and launching the public IPO in 1997 that allowed it to raise the funds needed for a $2 billion deal for 45 Boeing 737-800s, which is credited with beginning the airline’s operational efficiency advantage.

However, it was Ryanair’s early adoption of the Internet and the creation of a direct-sell airline, which outright rejected traditional sales methods such as travel agents, that propelled its rapid growth in the early 2000s.

I therefore find it ironic that Ryanair has finally realised it is missing out on this channel after watching its rivals, Jet2 and later EasyJet, develop highly profitable tour operations to replace the giant, vertically integrated tour operators that its low-cost yield model had destroyed.

For years, Ryanair did not realise how many millions of their seats were being included in holidays sold by OTAs and travel agents using Dynamic Packaging tools. However, their attempt to block this route in January 2024 through strict identity verification rules for customers who booked via third parties backfired dramatically, causing an immediate drop in both load factors and seat yields.

Again, Ryanair’s reaction was quick and bold. From one day calling third-party agents ‘Pirates’ for illegally adding charges to Ryanair flights, O’Leary quietly made a 360-degree turn and struck deals with all the major UK OTAs, developing a fee-free API that has taken a large share of seat sales from rivals EasyJet and Jet2.

Transforming from the anti-Christ to the preferred affordable partner of OTAs took less than six months and has opened a new route to reach’ Package Holiday’ customers without the hassle of developing their own technology, distribution, or incurring ATOL liabilities.

However, Ryanair are leaving a large part of the holiday profit in third-party hands and not exploiting the free spin-off traffic from their airline site in the same way Easyjet is.

EasyJet Holidays is highly profitable, primarily because it has very low customer acquisition costs, as most of its traffic originates from EasyJet brand searches, rather than costly Google advertising for destinations, resorts, or hotels.

Not owning the profits from the tour operation also prevents Ryanair from using holiday packages as a convenient and opaque way to dump excess seats into package holidays discreetly.

Given that 2025 is the summer when the wave of low-cost expansion finally ran aground on the rocks of excess capacity, there is only one logical next step.

My prediction is that Ryanair will take a bold step again and acquire both the privately owned Love Holidays and the publicly listed On the Beach holidays, to gain control of a substantial 7 million share of the package holiday market. To put things into perspective, it will cost Ryanair less than the price of 10 aircraft if they manage to secure both for the estimated $ 1 billion required.

Ryanair’s customer service ethos might stop its brand from becoming a package holiday provider, but targeting 70% of these newly acquired OTAs’ flight stock to be Ryanair via these established holiday brands is achievable and offers multiple benefits.

Watch this space, as Ryanair is not going to slow down, even at the age of 40, and will continue to make bold decisions under O’Leary.

“The Fastest Dinosaur Wins: Can Homeworkers Evolve in Time?

Posted on July 6, 2025 by admin

The internet decimated high-street travel agencies, but it led to the emergence of the Travel Homeworker, who avoided high Google advertising costs by creating “books” of customers. They primarily focused on “word-of-mouth” recommendations and the “trust” built through personal relationships with clients.

Ironically, it is now Google that faces the most significant threat from AI Search, although many large OTA and tour operators are also racing to be the “Fastest Dinosaur” in the park by adopting AI into their customer flows.

I still believe Homeworkers will play a significant role in the future.

However, even here, they need to work more intelligently by utilising AI to free up time for critical sales tasks, where they significantly outperform AI agents, who cannot detect buying signals or close deals.

The main advantages of AI agents are that they cost only a fraction of human agents, offer round-the-clock availability, and can answer all calls instantly, regardless of call volume.

Homeworkers will initially use them to provide out-of-hours cover, but they are likely to realise that their AI Co-Pilot can quickly recognise inbound call numbers, linking them to previous or existing bookings. This allows prioritising calls that should be answered by human agents based on the value of the booking or customer, while leaving the rest for the AI Co-Pilot to handle the discovery process for new clients or amendment requests.

In a world of AI Travel, where generic recommendations can be quickly obtained from ChatGPT or Perplexity for the best hotels in a destination, a key advantage will be how well you understand your customer.

That’s why my Neural Voice business has created the UK’s first AI Holiday Rep, where each customer is WhatsApped a link to a booking-specific Rep. Have a play https://www.holidayrep.ai/

The aim is simple. Enhance your “Brand” interaction with the customer by supporting them throughout their holiday, with the cost of this service covered by additional commissions from ancillary sales and in-resort excursions.

More importantly, you’re deepening your CRM understanding of the customer, and the more you know about them, the better the personalisation of next year’s holiday suggestions will be, e.g., the kids like water parks.

A key aspect of the authenticity of these AI Holiday Reps is that they are personalised to each holiday booking and know your name, party, flight details, and hotel. For example, the AI agent for my Tenerife holiday can use Google Maps to calculate that I need to leave home at 6:50 am to reach Manchester Terminal 3 for my Ryanair flight, as it will take approximately 55 minutes in traffic at that time of day. Many customers will not yet have decided between airport parking and local taxis when the AI first chats with them, so why not offer to send WhatsApp links for both options, as well as other obvious upsells, such as foreign exchange?

To be clear, every AI conversation should prioritise the customer and focus on offering assistance rather than just selling, as customers will quickly reject AI sales tools; however, there are always opportunities to upsell if you’re strategic.

You’ll be surprised that simply entering the hotel name and address allows the AI Holiday Rep to know everything about the surrounding resort and to suggest local restaurants by cuisine, provide detailed directions, organise local taxis for the customer, as well as offering weather guides and excursion booking services.

Once the customer becomes accustomed to speaking with their AI Holiday Rep, they will be happy to leave detailed reviews after their holiday because it is simply a conversation with the AI Rep, who already knows most of the details of their trip.

This user-generated content, which often includes photos, is pure “AI Search” gold, as it can be formatted not just to populate your CRM but also to create review posts for TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Reddit, or other third-party forums. The key is to seed the posts with your name or brand so that other customers reading these reviews understand how to book.

There is an ongoing debate about how AI Search Engines will decide what is a trusted source when compiling their results. Still, I guarantee that TripAdvisor and Reddit will remain firm favourites, so as well as working out how best to optimise content on your site, it’s also important to seed your content in as many other trusted sites as possible.

The best people to post this content are your clients, so make this as easy as possible for them and, where possible, reward them for doing so.

In summary, even homeworkers need to adopt and utilise AI in their workflows to make them smarter and more accessible. Just as they became experts in using travel websites, they will also need to stay one step ahead of their customers in utilising the new AI Travel tools that are arriving quickly.

However, homeworkers retain a key advantage. A cost-free advertising method known as “Word of Mouth” relies on excellent customer service and insights. The primary impact of AI on this community will be that top sellers can manage significantly more bookings by utilising AI for tasks beyond sales, potentially resulting in fewer homeworkers overall in the future.

So, make sure you’re one of the winners.

Google’s Travel Monopoly Under Fire: AI Disruptors and Regulators Close In

Posted on June 28, 2025 by admin

You know that you’re semi-retired from Travel retailing when you find yourself feeling sorry for Google.

However, Google is now caught between a tightening vice of consumers using AI Search from engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT to get answers more quickly, and European regulators imposing multi-billion-euro fines against Google for promoting its Flight and Hotel engines, which are designed to deliver this speed.

The core issue is that Google has been highly successful and holds a dominant position as the ‘Gatekeeper’ of search, with their 10 blue link technology that maximises profits by forcing travel customers to visit an average of 35 sites, review 141 pages of content, and often return to individual sites 2-3 times before booking.

This is an inefficient process, and Google rightly argues that their Flight and Hotel searches simplify the process for customers by comparing prices and summarising all options. However, so do Skyscanner and Booking.com, which Google openly prejudices by promoting its services more prominently and at a much lower cost.

The European Union has clearly had enough and introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to empower its regulators to hold Google accountable. This has already issued preliminary findings that Google is unlawfully favouring its services over competitors through more prominent treatment, such as top placement, enhanced visuals, and filtering mechanisms, while competitors’ results are less visible or demoted.

Google is therefore facing the prospect of not promoting its services so prominently, or the prospect of Billions more in fines, and even the prospect of being forced to divest part of its services.

However, like many customers, the month view calendar Google Flights offers is a much quicker way to find the cheapest date and supplier for a route. So, we face an apparent dilemma. As we shift from a directory of links to more useful AI tools that help you reach an answer faster, who is authorised to provide these tools if Google isn’t, and how will the revenue be shared?

In my opinion, the answer is simple.

AI search engines will collaborate with the top independent comparison platforms, as direct relationships with asset owners, such as low-cost airlines like EasyJet, do not offer the price comparison feature that consumers expect. However, Trip.com’s Chinese ownership of Skyscanner may pose challenges for the UK’s most well-known flight comparison engine, potentially leaving an opening.

Similarly, Ice Travel Group, the UK’s leading package holiday comparison site operators, is finally facing increased competition with the launch of several new AI-based entrants, such as Hey Holiday and white-label technology specialists Travel Find Holidays.

However, the AI Engines will also negotiate with other “Trusted” sources, and how can the asset owner or airline not be the ultimate trusted source? This is why, when you search on Perplexity for flights from Manchester to New York, you are presented with links to both Skyscanner and the websites of the major airlines operating the route, allowing the customer to choose. However, it is ironically less clear than Google Flights’ price map, which shows prices for the month at a glance. This illustrates how regulators might hinder consumer benefits while claiming to promote consumer choice. It’s an interesting balance!

The other key element that will change is how search charges will be applied.

The very nature of AI Search and its requirement to deliver customers to the answer more quickly inevitably spells the end of “Cost per Click” and a shift to “Cost per Acquisition” or a revenue share, but how do the Engines negotiate if they must tell the truth about who has the best deal?

Just as Google Search is evolving, so are OTAS’ marketing expenditures.

On the Beach (OTB) led the way with their massive investment in “Above the line” TV advertising, aimed at increasing brand awareness and attracting customers directly to their brand terms on Google or ideally as a direct site hit, reducing their reliance on resort or hotel search terms.

This now seems a very wise move, given the current 30% decline in Google Advertising effectiveness that has hit the entire UK Travel sector this summer. The nature of paid search competition has led to an increase in the price of attracting clicks, despite a decline in conversions.

Therefore, companies that have not diversified their visits away from Google search face an urgent need to evolve their model.

Interestingly, the largest OTA, Love Holidays, has diversified by partnering with social media giants “Holiday Pirates”. There is no publicly available information about the volumes this white label is generating; however, as long as the pay-away revenue share remains lower than Google advertising costs, it will be a beneficial deal for both partners.≈≈

I believe we will see more deals of this nature as new AI-driven travel entrants emerge in the market, because they enable new businesses to concentrate on their strengths without becoming entangled in the operational, contracting, or bonding issues that these major OTAs manage effortlessly.

Predicting AI’s impact on travel is challenging, but I predict that we haven’t yet seen the AI Travel business of the future. Just as the internet revolution transformed everything, I think the AI Revolution—featuring ‘Digital Twins” that understand all a customer’s preferences and shop on their behalf—will fundamentally alter how customers engage with travel providers. Therefore, my investment funds will be directed into this sector, based on the assumption that new technology will soon partner with others to complete the work.

Doubling Down on Downtime: How AI Will Transform Travel and Wellness

Posted on June 23, 2025 by admin

It was fascinating listening to Greg O’Hara, one of the world’s leading travel investors, discuss the opportunities he foresees in the next decade.

His key takeaway was that if you believe half the AI rhetoric, the average worker’s leisure time per week will increase from 2 to 4 days, thereby doubling the opportunity for travel or other leisure activities.

Therefore, in his opinion, investing in “Wellness”, which encompasses hotels with spas to golf course complexes, is a no-brainer. This is particularly true in the wellness sector, where demand already surpasses supply, such as digital detox retreats, immersive wellness experiences, or digital nomad workspaces designed to foster environments that are optimal for mental health in the workplace.

Most workers only have 25-30 days of holiday a year; however, that could easily double to 60 days in the next 10 years if AI advances at its predicted rate, so what travel products will UK travellers flock to moving forward?

The answer is probably a mix!

Logically, Airbnb will continue to expand rapidly if local tourist authorities do not hinder it, as more travellers seek the extra space and “Home from Home” experience provided by this service as they aim to extend their stays and possibly even work from their holiday destination.

Since Covid-19, I have been running my various businesses from a pod in my garden in Rochdale. With my virtual background always switched on, few people ever realise when I change location. Therefore, spending a month working in Spain or France, when necessary, becomes much easier for me and many other Brits. However, hotel rooms would not provide the space and comfort needed for such a long period; a rented Airbnb house meets many more of my needs at a significantly lower cost.

Increasing sporting activities such as running, cycling, and golf seem inevitable, fostering the opportunity to create niche travel businesses focused on these specialist sectors. Personally, this appears to be an attractive investment prospect for my retirement, especially if they can meet my own travel needs.

Many people will wish to travel further and longer than ever before. My Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses are more of a toy than a travel tool at present, but hearing Spanish conversation and having the translation whispered into my ear is already a fantastic experience.

Being slightly older, I remember the fictional character Arthur Dent dropping a “Babble” fish into his ear to understand various languages in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, AI is rapidly turning this into a reality, making global travel much easier for all of us.

Inevitably, this will in turn greatly expand the world’s range of holiday destinations, revealing unexplored yet more affordable regions such as Indonesia and South America.

The most significant increase in volume, however, is likely to occur with increased short breaks to Europe’s beaches and cities, propelled by the seemingly endless expansion of the UK’s low-cost airlines.

I already have friends who travel virtually every weekend after working Monday through Wednesday, in the less-than-sunny Rochdale. How many UK residents will this become a lifestyle choice?

Of course, some commentators may be having a fit at this stage, worried about the emissions and Global warming impact of so much travel.

However, if you listen to the leaders of the AI technology giants, the age of “Radical Abundance,” delivered by AI, will quickly provide us the economic wealth necessary to meet the investment required to address global warming.

Importantly, we already know the solution to Global Warming. Still, we are not making the necessary investment to greenify our electricity production, ban all combustion engines, and insulate our homes to eliminate the need for gas central heating.

I am quickly becoming a Green “Optimist” who, although deeply concerned about Global Warming, believes it’s a threat that humanity can easily address with the right focus and that it’s not a reason to halt our wanderlust and desire to explore new cultures in foreign lands.

Getting ahead of this investment trend seems a smart way to use my remaining years in the travel industry, so reach out if you have ideas and need to secure funding to develop them.

Radical Abundance or Digital Downfall: The AGI Dilemma

Posted on June 15, 2025 by admin

If you don’t already listen to podcasts and watch YouTube video interviews of the world’s AI leaders, it’s maybe time to start.

I have already documented in previous blogs that my biggest fear is that the implementation of AI technology will occur so rapidly that it causes a structural upheaval in our society, resulting in a 50% decline in new white-collar jobs and unemployment surpassing 20%. Inevitably, this will create a world where the rich become even richer and the poor are left devastated.

Listening to a Wired interview with Demis Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind, which is now a Google-backed business, gave me a much more positive outlook.

DeepMind has already dramatically boosted the productivity of medical scientists with the launch of AlphaFold. This is a groundbreaking AI system capable of accurately predicting 3D protein structures from amino acid sequences. This capability addresses one of biology’s grand challenges and has had a transformative impact on fields such as drug discovery, enzyme design, and disease research.

Already, this new AI technology is leading to cures for diseases and extending human life; however, this surely creates more humans competing for the limited resources of our Earth.

However, Demis believes that we are merely being short-sighted and that “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI) will be achieved within the next five years. This is where computers become as intelligent as humans and are capable of programming their own improvement. Demis believes that this will lead to a golden age of “Radical Abundance.”

He predicts, for instance, that AGI will solve the issue of power production through nuclear fusion, thus providing abundant clean energy that will enable countries to tackle water shortages by desalinating the plentiful seawater that surrounds us. This, in turn, will increase the available land for growing food, allowing the planet to sustain the growing world population, eliminating the need for mass migration and reducing the necessity to wage war over resources.

He notes that we already know the solutions to climate change, but a lack of geopolitical cooperation hinders their implementation, as no single country is willing to bear the cost. In his view, this “zero-sum game” mentality will shift in a time of radical abundance.

When asked about overpopulation, he predicts that AGI, along with radical abundance, will enable humans to invest the substantial sums necessary to make space travel viable. This, in turn, will allow humanity to reduce overcrowding on Earth and to populate our galaxy and beyond.

He, however, also acknowledges that it’s a time of significant risk for humans, as a lack of international cooperation and regulation means AGI could easily fall into the hands of bad actors, and the increasing digitalisation of our societies makes cyber warfare virtually inevitable.

I am therefore pleased to hear these more cheerful views of the future from Demis and also from Elon Musk, but it does make me wonder if this is not just the positive spin that AI leaders need, working on a product whose impact is so substantial and could either be the best or worst thing for human society.

What is truly shocking is Demis’s absolute conviction that AGI will be with us within 3-5 years. For me, AGI is a massive accelerator of the AI revolution that already amazes me every day.

If you’re not embracing AI in your business, you’re standing still in a rapidly evolving world, and we all know that standing still is a recipe for disaster.

Steve Endacott Blog

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